Potato Soup, Olive Garden, Zuppa Toscana Style

A friend asked me for my potato soup recipe on Sunday.  It got me thinking about potato soup (yummmmm).  So, today I made a bit crock pot of this Potato Soup.  My husband says it tastes exactly like the Zuppa Toscana, from the Olive Garden - but he likes it better, because I use more sausage.

You can make a big pot of this for less $ than lunch for 1 at Olive Garden. So, here's the recipe! I made it based on a recipe another friend had given me, but I adjusted the amounts and used sausage instead of bacon.

Crock Pot Zuppa Toscana, Potato Soup

9 Cups - Potatoes, peeled and diced.

8 Cups - Chicken Stock.

1 Can  - Evaporated Milk (Whole Milk)

1/3 lb. - Bob Evans - Italian Sausage (loose, not links)

1/3 lb  - Bob Evans - Hot/ Spicy  Sausage (loose, not links)

1 Cup - Chopped Onions

1/2  - 9 oz box frozen spinach (just chop frozen spinach in 1/2 with big knife - keep the rest frozen for your next pot of soup)

1 Cup - Grated Cheddar Cheese

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Place first 3 ingredients in crock pot.  Brown sausage and add to crock pot.  Saute onions a little in the sausage grease until soft, don't over cook.  Add to pot.

Cook 5 -6 hours on high or 7-8 on low, or until potatoes are done.

30 -45 min. before eating add in spinach (frozen is ok) Stir every few minutes to mix in.  

10 min before serving, turn off crock pot.  If you are going to use this for more than 1 meal, take out what you will be saving for another meal(s) and set aside.

Add cheese to what you will eat that night.  Stir until dissolved.

When you want to serve the rest, reheat, remove from heat and add cheese.  Stir until dissolved.

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Notes:

If you don't like sausage, just cook up 1/2 lb of bacon and crumble. Add it at the end with the cheese and skip the spinach.

Or you could use some ham - I'd put that in at the beginning.

I buy 1 roll of Bob Evans - Italian Sausage (green wrapper) and 1 roll of Bob Evans - spicy/hot (red wrapper) and cut each into 3 pieces.  Place each piece in a sandwich bag and freeze.  When you want to make soup, it is easy to thaw the amount you need.  You will get 3 pots of Zuppa from 2 rolls of sausage.  For us that is at least 6 meals. 

 I do recommend that you use Bob Evans because it has just the right taste.  Also, there are often coupons in the paper. Sometimes you can get it on sale + double coupons at Meijer!

Note:

After having the leftovers I would make 1 change.  Next time, I will only add the cheese to the part I would eat that night and add cheese the next night to the rest.  The cheese separated when it was chilled.  I made that change in the recipe above too.